You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
📰 Newsroom Update
Billie Eilish is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2024. Learn more >
Billie Eilish is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2024. Learn more >
After an update to mojave and safari when I launched itunes it hung on iTunes Music Library
After a while of trying to get itunes to launch, all I get is the few songs that I downloaded recently.
so much for updating anything
tia!!
macbook mid 2014
mojave 10.14.6
itoonz 12.9.5.5 (150gb music)
safari 14.03
MacBook
Thanks for that, greatly appreciate it!
Quick question, when I replace the corrupted ITL file with the most recent one that I have, will I lose my purchases since they are not associated with the old ITL file?
That would be great!
I think the last quick questions.....
Would my playlists be turned back into the date of that ITL file?
....potentially loosing anything that was created after the Previous iTunes Libraries ITL date.
In your post you mentioned that the ITL file isn't created unless itunes is updated.
Is there any way to create or force these files to be created?
Or I guess I can just copy the current ITL at times for a current backup.
I'll look in time machine, but I think the last time I dragged something over it completely re-arranged every icon on my desktop. I guess I’ll do a screen shot just in case!
Yes, restoring a dated .itl file takes your library back to the state it was in on that date. You can import the contents for the media folder to add in any tracks that were added to the library after that date. A more recent backup of the .itl from Time Machine would be ideal if it exists. Also check the iTunes folder for hidden .tmp files. It is possible one exists that is the state of the library just before the corruption occurred. In future you could take periodic manual backups of the .itl file to make recovery easier if this issue were repeated.
tt2
There are five of these, from Temp File.tmp to Temp File 4.tmp but all are pretty old....from 2009-2014.
Oddly the preview on some is the itunes ITL logo and on others it's text like <?xml version="1.0"........ and the size of them varies.
I'm guessing that those are not a viable route.
I'll have a look at time machine and see if there's a newer ITL otherwise I guess that I'll be rebuilding some playlists and chasing down purchases. Too bad that data can't be taken off of my iphone.
In future you could take periodic manual backups of the .itl file to make recovery easier if this issue were repeated.
Will copying the "current" ITL at times work?
The temp files are generated when one of the database files is updated, a new file is written out, the old one deleted, and the new one renamed to replace it. They are left behind if that process is interrupted. Clearly you have nothing recent enough to be useful.
Yes you can copy the current ITL to make a copy, best to do it when iTunes is fully closed.
tt2
Thank you so much for all of the assistance, that worked!
I totally panicked, I did see the music was still there but I have many playlists that I didn't want to lose!
Luckily I had not added any new play lists in a while so it didn't take much to add the new purchases to it. Oddly there is a difference of one song between my iphone and itunes......just an ocd thing!
It would be cool if there was a way to compare playlists!
Usually I do a manual backup and actually copy the entire itunes folder onto to two different hard drives, unfortunately I slacked, but luckily I found more recent ones on the time machine drive. I need to get more diligent about backing up and a new TM drive that can stay connected all of the time.
Previously when I’ve "entered time machine" to retrieve a file when I'd "exit" it would rearrange everything on my desktop....and it was not related to what it looked like at the time I went back to.
This time I was able to avoid that mess by just navigating (clicking) into the contents of the drive
I'm assuming that it is okay to delete any of the corrupted and older files?
...........there is a text edit app file called "iTunes Library (Damaged)" and also the ".tmp" files that were not of any help
Are the any or all of the "Previous iTunes Libraries" necessary to keep?
Yes, once you've got your library working again you can remove the damaged itl and all the temp files. You can also discard older files from the Previous iTunes Libraries folder, though you could potential use the folder to take a new manual backup of the current library file.
tt2
The iTunes Library.itl file is the core of your library. Do not delete it.
The XML file is only needed if you have third party software that want to read it when iTunes isn't running. Under Edit > Preferences > Advanced turn of the option to Share XML if you don't needed. The file is called iTunes Music Library.xml when the ITL is in the default location of <User's Music>\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl otherwise is has the same name as the .itl. It will be rebuild automatically if the option to create it is enabled so you can delete both safely.
tt2
Everything should come back, all locally stored media referenced in the library plus any unhidden purchases in the store that are not downloaded.
tt2
You're welcome. 🙂
tt2
Sounds good,......last query!
Are the .xml files equally as important?
iTunes Library.itl
iTunes Library.xml
iTunes Music Library.xml
21-02-06 mojave update broke itunes, only recent purchases now show in library
